Covid-19: Singapore Airlines extending elite status for selected members

With the ongoing Covid-19 situation, many people have cancelled both personal and work trips. For elite members, this potentially throws a spanner into the re-qualification plan.

In light of that, it’s great to hear that Singapore Airlines is proactively extending elite status by a year for members with membership years ending soon. Here’s the email being sent out:

In case you can’t read that, it says:

I reached out to Singapore Airlines for comment, and got the following:

“Singapore Airlines has renewed the membership of selected KrisFlyer Elite Silver, Elite Gold, PPS and Solitaire PPS Club members for another year in recognition of their long-time support.”

What’s less clear is exactly who gets these emails- is every member eligible, or only those within a certain threshold of re-qualification? How many years do you need to have been a member to get this extension? What happens if your membership year ends later in 2020? Is this extension being offered only to Singapore-based members, or to all members worldwide?

I’m guessing these mails are being sent out now for members with year ends in February, so sit tight if you haven’t got one yet. My membership year ends in March, and I’d be very interested to see if I get an extension, given my year-to-date status looks like this:

That said, I’m just a lowly KrisFlyer Elite Silver now so re-qualification isn’t exactly a life or death situation. I do imagine that this would be a lot more important to someone with Elite Gold/PPS/Solitaire PPS status.

As a reminder, here’s the regular qualification requirements for each tier of membership:

Tier	Requirement (in 12 consecutive months)
KF Elite Silver	25,000 elite miles
KF Elite Gold	50,000 elite miles
PPS Club	S$25,000 PPS Value
Solitaire PPS Club	S$50,000 PPS Value

Other loyalty programs are also offering extensions

Singapore Airlines isn’t alone in offering extensions; we’re seeing hotel chains like Hyatt extend elite status for members in Asia. It’s a very nice gesture, and I hope that other chains follow suit (and that we don’t see widespread abuse of this, e.g people “relocating” their accounts to Asia).

Conclusion

Obviously there are way more important things than renewing elite status, but this is nonetheless a very gracious gesture by Singapore Airlines.

If you received one of these emails, please sound out below with whatever data points you’re able to share- useful information may include your status, how many years you’ve held it, when your membership year ends, whether you were based in Singapore and how close (or far) you were from re-qualifying.